Dancing Dirt Into The Snow
by sdbubbles
Summary: She isn't dealing with it as well as she'd hoped, and someone has to make her see it: dancing the dirt into the snow is never a good idea.


**A/N: This takes place the night that Sandra finds out that Tom is her half-brother. **_  
_

**Also, the song I used is "Dancing Dirt Into The Snow" by Missy Higgins. It's a song that really actually describes me very well - I keep having to go through things that taint who I am, and not in a nice way.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

_Alone you find yourself just hanging  
And to fill the hole you cling to all that seems  
To hide the little girl that's crying  
Underneath the rage that you let others see  
_

Sandra Pullman sat, rather worse for wear, at home, reeling after what that woman just explained to her in the church. About her dad. About the prostitute. About the affair. About the betrayal. About Tom. About her _brother_.It made her stomach turn to know that the dad she loved, and still loved, would have betrayed her mum like that. That he would have betrayed his baby girl like that.

There was a sharp knock at the door and she got up to answer it, knowing it was either Jack or Gerry. And, of course, she was not mistaken. Gerry Standing stood before her, looking extremely concerned for her. She knew he hated the situation where she was finding out things about her dad she wished she didn't know. "What do you want?" she asked forcefully, trying to come across as fiercer than she felt. She hoped he didn't see through it to the fourteen-year-old girl falling apart inside of her in the knowledge that everything she thought she knew was a lie.

"To make sure you're alright, Sandra," he replied with a small grimace. He'd seen it. She knew he'd seen that she was wounded by another revelation that her dad was not the saint she believed him to be.

"I'm fine," she snarled at him, half-cut after many drinks to try and dull the shock. She was furious, and she was taking it out on Gerry. He was always the easiest target; he took it with a cheeky retort. Jack made her feel guilty for being mean to him, and Brian, well, the slightest thing could send him spinning out of control, couldn't it? Gerry was the one who bore the brunt of the pain she transformed into sheer fury for everyone else's benefit.

He ignored her and walked straight into her home, disregarding her protests. She followed him to the kitchen and shouted at him, "Get out! I don't remember inviting you in here!"

"I don't remember asking for an invitation," he reminded her calmly. He turned to face her, daring her silently to keep shouting. A dare she took on with great enthusiasm.

"Get out!" she snapped at him. "Leave me alone! I don't need you. I don't need _anyone_," she insisted loudly, and she swayed a little in her state of drunkenness. She tripped a little and he instantly reached out and steadied her.

_'Cause you're dancing dirt into the snow  
While others look at you on show  
You're dancing dirt into the snow  
While all around you people grow  
And watch you bleed  
And watch you bleed_

"Yes, you do, Sandra," he said gently. "You're just making it harder on yourself." She looked into his eyes and saw something there she'd never noticed before: the care he felt for her. She couldn't yell at him again. Not after seeing he was truly worried for her. "And I'll tell you something else for nothing," he added to her.

"Yeah?" she challenged half-heartedly. "What's that?" He gazed up at her, and she felt like a child. She felt like he was her rock, the only thing standing between her and total loneliness.

"You're not really angry," he said to her. "Not at me, anyway. You're hurt." He was right. She knew he was right about the fury she just directed at him. She was acutely aware of his hands on her arms and his proximity to her. He was not threatening to her, though. He was some strange source of calm, keeping her just settled enough to remember not to hit him or shout at him again.

"Wanna bet?" she demanded, her speech a little slurred.

"No," he answered, a smile playing on my lips. "We discovered today exactly where betting usually gets me, and it ain't nowhere nice."

She didn't smile. She stared at him stonily, wishing he would just go away and allow her to drink herself into oblivion, just so she wouldn't have to deal with this tonight. She couldn't handle it tonight. In a few days, maybe, after she had drunk herself silly and got over the hellish hangover she was sure to endure, maybe then she would start to process it. Then she could perhaps learn to live with how her life was tainted from now until the day she died.

She didn't see that her boys would watch her wounded until she decided she could try and deal with what she now knew to be the truth. She didn't understand that none of them wanted to watch her clam up while she tried to understand this, while she tried to work out how to proceed with Tom. How to tell Grace. God, she still had to explain to her mother. It had escaped her notice that her mother was clueless about her husband's _other_ child.

_So now you look at me, eyes wooden_  
_An anchor through your head_  
_Crimson for disguise_  
_An opal for a wound you carry_  
_Fairy lights of pleading someone look at me_

Her eyes met his again, and she felt herself close up, trying to shut out the anger, and the pain and the man holding her upright, trying to get through to her. Her eyes were sore and bloodshot in a mix of extensive sobbing and a little too much alcohol, and she realised she probably wasn't a pretty picture right now.

The scar left by today was heavy and she was very much conscious of it's visibility to Gerry as she gazed at him, wondering how many of her cruel words he was willing to take to help her through this. She didn't want him there; it was as simple and as oddly complex as that. So she decided to rid herself of him while making it quite plain how much pain she was in. She didn't want to fall out with him. She just wanted peace to try and forget today ever happened.

She forcefully jerked her arms out of his firm grasp and snapped at him, "I don't want to talk to you about this!" She could feel the control slipping from her quickly, as if it was running from her like Gerry refused to. "I want to forget he exists! I don't want to go over it again!" she shouted at him.

Gerry sighed at her resistance. "You need to talk to someone," he insisted. "You can't just forget. You need to accept that things happened the way they did. You need to accept your dad did what he did. You need to accept that Tom Eldridge is your half-brother."

Something snapped inside her. At those words, something clocked that made her rage inside herself. Maybe because she had been drinking, or because she was so incredibly raw and beaten inside, but she lost her temper. Gerry ducked for cover as the nearest wine glass flew above him, into the wall behind. A plate came next. Then a bowl smashed into a cupboard. "He is _not_ my brother!" came the scream he'd been dreading. "I don't have a bloody brother!"

The tears were hot on her cheeks, but is was nothing next to the searing burn of knowing she'd been betrayed by her dad in that way.

_'Cause you're dancing dirt into the snow_  
_While others look at you on show_  
_You're dancing dirt into the snow_  
_While all around you people grow_  
_And watch you bleed_  
_And watch you bleed_

Sandra glanced around her at the shattered glass littering her counter-tops and her kitchen floor. She was shocked. She had just thrown dishes at Gerry, for Christ's sake. And, for some reason, she felt the urge to do it again. To throw things as hard as she could, to see the shards of her past shattered across her floor. Because her past was a lie. It always had been, from the second her dad hooked up with Tom's real mother.

So she picked up another bowl and chucked it at the wall, leaving scuff marks on the paint. Another glass. A coffee mug. And then Gerry's hands were tight on her wrists, restraining her from throwing anything else into the units and walls.

There was a sharp pain in the palm of her hand and she felt the warm trickle of blood oozing out of her skin. It dripped to the pale lino on the floor, scarlet against the pale cream. Tainting it. Marring it's purity with it's darkness. Something she could easily relate to right about now. It represented the loss of her own innocence. She had seen and done a lot in her job – it cam with the territory – but, up until recently, she always believed she'd had a stable loving family. She had never once thought that _this_ could have happened.

"Sandra," he breathed. "Don't do this. Don't lose it like this. You're making it harder for yourself," he tried to tell her but she shook her head and pulled away from him again, staggering slightly as she threw herself on the sofa. She brought her knees up to her chin and stared at the reflection in the black window of a cold, late night.

Her eyes were red, her mascara running down her cheeks. She didn't know what she felt. She didn't know what forgiveness was here. There was no way of knowing what she would be when she came out the other side. She didn't know if she could call Tom her brother. She'd grown up without him, never even knowing he existed. How could she call a stranger her brother? It wasn't possible. Not just now, at least.

She could almost see Gerry changing after witnessing Sandra Pullman really lose all control. And all she did was bleed. The red liquid was soaking into her clothes but she couldn't care less, really. It was just one more thing to clean up once she sobered up.

_The more you push through broken glass, the thicker it becomes_  
_And the more you turn on broken worlds, the sooner you will need..._  
_The more you push through broken glass, the thicker it becomes_  
_And the more you turn on broken worlds, the sooner you will need..._  
_A gun._

She felt like she was resisting the inevitable. She was pushing the broken reality of it away from her in her initial shock. When she found out she had a brother, she went about finding him, not actually realising that, when she did, she would never be the same. That she would forever be pushing against a cracked window that stood between her and a happy family. And it wasn't fair.

When Gerry finally sat next to her, she found herself going over what had happened. How it had come about. A normal Sunday morning turned into a call out for a case, which turned into a search for a brother she never knew she had, and then into a shattered reality of having a person in her life who was the product of the worst kind of betrayal. And, whether she liked it or not, until she decided what to do, Tom Eldridge would have to be a part of her life, even if just a for a little while.

Every time she went over it, she felt something new. Extreme pain. Furious rage. Just plain broken. Remembering Tom walking through that door, hugging his adoptive mother...it was agony. And the tears broke free, streaming down her face like there was no end to them. Gerry's arm was soon wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into his warmth.

The more she went over it, the worse she felt. She clung to Gerry, wishing he could make it go away. Wishing he could take her back to three years ago, when the only thing on her mind was her team. Before she'd been enlightened to her dad's suicide or his recklessness. Before everything changed.

She felt Gerry's lips on the top of her head and she whispered to him, "Why did he do this to me?"

_'Cause you're dancing dirt into the snow_  
_While others look at you on show_  
_While all around you people grow_

By asking herself this over and over and over, even though she could never really know the answer, she only discovered more pain. More anger. And she tried again to push Gerry's care away, retracting herself away from him, acting angry again. But it didn't work, because he knew now it was just a show. It was an excuse to not deal with how she felt.

He held her tight, and she tried to let him make her feel safe and protected, but she couldn't ignore the fact that the one person she always trusted loved her was not the man she'd thought. But she managed to cry herself to sleep, still wrapped in his arms. And, even in her sleep, she was plagued by the memories of this case and the hornet's nest she'd kicked by taking it on. But as she made it worse, going over every detail, she slowly realised, in this dream, it was pointless.

Gerry was right: what happened happened, and there was no point in dancing the dirt into the snow.

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**Hope this was alright!**

**Please leave a review and tell me what you think!**

**Sarah x**


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